Femininity In The Swan And Virgin Brides

With the shift of gender roles in American culture, comes the shift in how Americans portray characters in certain television and media shows. While the cultural norms and beliefs change as a country, so do the way people perceive the roles of males and females. In the 1950’s, it was normal for a female to be working on and at the home, taking care of the kids, and doing the tedious chores around the house. All while the male is at work, making the money to support the family. In today’s time, with many advances in women’s rights and cultural acceptance, these roles are not so specific to a gender.

What dictates the social roles, the individual responsibility everyone has in society, and stereotypes, an overgeneralized and oversimplified belief of a particular person or group, in America’s 21st century society? Can rationale and critical thinking be held accountable for the establishment of ethical beliefs involving people and their sex, gender related value systems? The following readings covered in this essay are both found within the textbook, Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers; the Introduction: Popular Signs written by coauthors Sonia Maasik, a writing programs lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Jack Solomon, an English Professor at California State University, and located within the second chapter of the textbook, the brief article, Dove’s “Real Beauty” backlash, written by Jennifer L. Pozner, the executive director of Women In Media & News (“Sonia Maasik”)(“Jack Solomon”)(194). Mass entertainment culture, the popular interests of the majority broadcasted in the media, can be attributed for constituting and sustaining the potentially hindering culture myths, a fictitious but widely accepted belief of a certain culture, regarding all genders. These cultural myths are not exclusive to men and women as they also involve transgender individuals and others who identify as another gender not classified under ‘cisgender.’ An extensive analysis of mass entertainment culture and

As explained in Judith Lorber’s excerpt from “‘Night To His Day’: The Social Construction of Gender”, gender is a socially constructed concept that everyone unconsciously adheres to (Lorber). As a socially constructed concept, representations of gender roles can reinforce or challenge the stereotypical images. In Killing Us Softly 4, Jean Kilbourne analyzed the advertisement industry’s representation of women and argued that the media plays a huge role in shaping gender formations (Kilbourne). Although objectification of women is still a prevalent issue, Kilbourne acknowledged that there are efforts nowadays that challenges the unrealistic representations of women and femininity (Kilbourne). Inspired partly by Killing Us Softly 4, the project is my way to reflect on how the Disney movies I had watched as I grow up represented gender.

Gender roles have been a hotly debated topic in the most recent years, especially the role of women in society. Women have had set expectations that they are believed to conform to, which is shown in many pieces of film and literature. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald describes the life of a man in the upper class in the 1920’s, as well as women in the 1920’s. The movie The Princess Bride, written by William Goldman, visually explains the treatment and expectations of women, and especially focuses on the “damsel in distress” stereotype.. Roxane Gay’s “Bad Feminist” explains the stereotypes against women and ways women can come together and fight these constraints. Based on these sources, societal expectations take away from each individual’s identity, forcing women to conform to society's standards. In order to fight against these expectations, women have banded together and formed movements against these standards.

The paramount of social adversities facing the modern society is the divide between definitions of gender. Gender represents an abstract interpretation of sex and this notion is simply a societal construct. The establishment of gender has evolved into a tradition of humanity, however this tradition evolved into a social divide between masculinity and femininity. The pressure to conform to societal constructs of masculinity and femininity poisons society and branches off to toxic masculinity; such were nurtured from these figurative beliefs. Gender roles further stigmatize the victims who refuse to conform. However, gender roles has witnessed a revolution in modern times. The purpose of this collateral involves analyzing the evolution of gender roles present in media from mid 19th century to modern times. The period of time, or 1960’s, was chosen because of post World War II’s effects on stereotypes in society around the world. Post war not only challenged stereotypes but further kindled women’s role in the workforce and women began to fill in roles previously belonging to men. In later years, a radicalization of the feminist movement has spurred and our modern times is a witness to its ascension to the paramount of feminism. The media, since the 1960’s, has allowed society to be the primary witness. With the evolution of gender roles, the media must also adapt to the changes in societal views of gender roles and the entire feminist movement at large. This collateral seeks to

The idea of women being the inferior and submissive gender is no new concept, which has plagued humanity since ancient times. This dangerous concept consists of many traditional and outdated “gender roles” such as women are domestic, weak, powerless and inferior, and men are strong, heroic and dominant. –slide- Good morning/afternoon everyone, and thank you for inviting me to speak at todays “Equality for All” conference. I hope my presentation acts to educate and inform you all, and hopefully you will leave this room with a bit more insight into why twilight is not the perfect teen movie it has been presented as. –slide- Twilight, a popular mainstream “romance” movie, greatly enforces these harmful gender roles, unbeknown to many of its viewers

One can view Two and a Half Men as a parody of old-fashioned gender roles, but in many ways the series still cements some of the outdated views on women. As I do not feel that Two and Half Men accurately depicts gender and sex in the United States on the average, however the show reflects, even though exaggerated, somewhat the idea that women are supposed to be beautiful and for males pleasure. As the saying goes, one cannot be “too rich or too thin”. (Henslin, 2012, p.

In the Ouellette and Hay reading, they talk about makeover television and how it has “achieved a visible role in the new circuitry of citizenship formation afforded by reality entertainment, and that “programs designed for these purposes are used to “amplify the government of everyday life” (p. 472). Having read this, I believe that the former television show, The Swan, is a good example of this, as all it does is promote/advertise the preferred and desired representation of women based on present societal norms. By doing this, they believe that these types of programs are taking advantage of the “cultural power of television” to press certain behaviors and norms into ordinary people while also teaching them how to perform these behaviors on

Women are sexually exploited in the media. In today’s society if people watch television programs such as Chingy featuring Snoop & Ludacris – Holidae; Charlie's Angels; the Z100 commercial with Britney Spears; or Baywatch they will see that the feminine image is presented differently than the masculine. In these programs men are typically placed in sexual situations fully clothed, while women are presented in provocative clothing or less. The camera will frequently zoom in on body parts to focus on the woman’s buttocks, midriff, and legs. Society is still dominated by men who control what people see. As a result women are increasingly portrayed as sex symbols as a way for a media company to turn

Thesis: In recent years during the 21st century more and more people in the media have been calling out fairytales for their anti-feminist attitudes with sexism, body standards as well as societal comments about women being dependent on men.

The quality of American television has become a national disgrace. Young women in America who are displeased with their appearance more likely then not can trace those feelings directly back to images from the mass media on television. The unrealistic representations of women that the mass media bombards young women with indicates that the television has become a source for a distorted understanding of gender roles among adolescent women. These images warp young women’s views of their own gender identity. The mass media on television should in an attempt to provide more positive gender identities for adolescent women depict women on television in more realistic ways, should stop

It 's not a mystery that society 's ideals of beauty have a drastic and frightening effect on women. Popular culture frequently tells society, what is supposed to recognize and accept as beauty, and even though beauty is a concept that differs on all cultures and modifies over time, society continues to set great importance on what beautiful means and the significance of achieving it; consequently, most women aspire to achieve beauty, occasionally without measuring the consequences on their emotional or physical being. Unrealistic beauty standards are causing tremendous damage to society, a growing crisis where popular culture conveys the message that external beauty is the most significant characteristic women can have. The approval of prototypes where women are presented as a beautiful object or the winner of a beauty contest by evaluating mostly their physical attractiveness creates a faulty society, causing numerous negative effects; however, some of the most apparent consequences young and adult women encounter by beauty standards, can manifest as body dissatisfaction, eating disorders that put women’s life in danger, professional disadvantage, and economic difficulty.

Dating back to the 1920’s mass communication mediums of film, television and print have all been means that act as powerful tools of propaganda and thus play an integral role in the lives of individuals. It is for this reason that it is often widely accepted that the media is to be used as a tool, which represents a common public interest. Men and women are represented through forms of media in different ways, which create images depicting stereotypical traits and characteristics. The problem brought fourth by this is concerned with the issue of gender or the ‘discourse’ of gender and how individuals perceive themselves (Gauntlett, 2008) As the media is such a big part of everybody’s lives, there is not doubt that when this powerful function is synthesized with the medium’s capacity to accentuate present day realities on our screens the result tends to elicit a dominant ideology; which in turn presents an argument for major ethical implications in regard to public stigma and subsequent prejudice. This essay shall critically consider gender representation in Sex and the City (HBO, 1998-2004) and the extent to which these characters challenge the patriarchal privilege.

Television networks are continually expanding their programming slates, and many in the past have switched to a year-round programming schedule that makes the phrase “summer return” basically absolute. On every channel, in every magazine, every darken theater, we see the way pop culture limits women’s role- girlfriends, victims, hookers, corpses, sex bombs, and “teases,” but why? Television, for most women, was the first place where they were able to visually see themselves represented. And for quite a while, they didn’t see much besides the loving wife, the dutiful daughter, gossiping girlfriends, fashion models, and the occasional maid, granny, or nanny. In Where the Girls Are: Growing Up

The roles of males and females in society have significantly changed, as opposed to the predominant roles in our history. In the modern culture of today, women have begun to break out of the mold that which society has placed her in. This much can’t be said when it comes to modern gender representation in mass media advertising. It can be safe to state that woman are seen as sexual, fragile, exotic—whereas men are portrayed as tough, in control, and aggressive. This trend can be one seen as an inhibitor to the advancement of our culture, because especially for women, it is hard to pull away from the stereotypes that are continuously represented. As examples of the given trend, the following